December started with some major FinTech news. Grab-Singtel received the digital full-bank licenses issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Only two digital full-bank licenses and two digital wholesale were awarded to four of the 21 applicants. The AIP Team is wondering if a (re)insurance license will follow next!
Other major news is the partnership between AIA and ZA Tech. AIA Group is the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group with a presence in 18 markets in Asia-Pacific and ZA Tech is the technology arm of Chinese ZhongAn Insurance. The partnership aims to enable AIA to reach new customer segments with new innovative insurance products.
In India, ICICI Lombard partnered with InsurTech Plum to develop tech-powered group health insurance. Listen to our episode with Abhishek Poddar, the co-founder, and CEO of Plum, here. And in Singapore, Carro and MSIG launched usage-based motor insurance to reward safe drivers. While telematics solutions have been around for some years now, we still haven’t seen a high adoption rate in Southeast Asia.
UPDATE: The strategic partnership between ZA Tech and AIA is not a joint-venture, but a commercial agreement.
Other companies mentioned in this episode: PayTM, Wirecard, Coherent
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